NBR does its best to restrict lending

NBR could speed the enforcement of new regulations on lending for individuals, with the draft still on the experts’ table and set to be debated tomorrow during the meeting of the Board of Governors, stated Adrian Vasilescu, spokesman of NBR’s Governor Mugur Isarescu. He adds that the “stress test” phrase could be dropped from the draft, though not the principle that bounds banks to present their clients with a repayment plan built on the possibility that interest rates might increase and the RON might depreciate. “The draft that will reach the Board of Governors may no longer include the “stress tests” phrase, but the essence it stands for will remain. NBR continues to be concerned with the idea of transparency and clarity, so that experts are working on a text to make it very clear. Clarification is not done by cutting provisions, but by choice of words and the issue of stress test might also be debated from a stylistic point of view,” Vasilescu says. He adds that for now, talks are still being held between NBR and banks’ experts, and is too soon to be talking about NBR giving some things up.